Where things are sometimes catty & sometimes wampus, and always a bit of fun. A random assortment of my adventures in knitting, photography, life, and cooking.

February 25, 2013

Moving right along

I don't have much to show right now...if I took more pictures while I cooked I could tell you about how marvelous homemade falafel is, or how much I love my Frybaby. Actually, I can tell you that anyway - I debated for over a year whether or not to buy it. I was afraid I would end up using it for Very Bad Foods, but I haven't. The only thing I have made in it that I wouldn't have otherwise made on the stove top are chicken wings for the superbowl and 1. they were so good that I just don't care if they were bad for me, and 2. fat and calories don't count on days like that.

I have made arancini, which were AMAZING, and falafel, which was also amazing, and that's about it. I will probably experiment with donuts at some point, but it seems dangerous, so I haven't started down that path yet.

It's also MUCH easier to fry something when you aren't constantly worried that you are overheating the oil and that it may spontaneously combust at any moment.

Thank you all for your helpful comments on the Raindrop Cardi - I found a grosgrain ribbon that matches and now I just have to find some solid time to sit down, read up on how best to attach it, and get to it. Hopefully next weekend.

In the meantime, I am making super awesome progress on other knitted things, and I have two sweaters that are complete sans one sleeve - so they are not very exciting to show you, but hopefully will be much more exciting (ie done) very soon.

The good thing about both of those two sweaters is that I started them for fall transitional weather (I won't tell you if that was fall 2011 or fall 2012), so they will be very good for the upcoming spring.

I also started a Craftsy class for a Fair Isle vest, and of course I don't like the vest they are making, so I'm making the Ivy League Vest (more or less). I've been swatching for that and I think I finally understand how to hold both yarns in my left hand, which will make my stitches MUCH more even and hopefully make it all go faster. I can throw if I have to, but it makes the gauge for those stitches much looser than the gauge for the stitches I'm picking, also, I just hate doing it. Even if that had been the only thing I learned from that class the cost would have been worth it.

Here is my gauge swatch. I clearly messed up the pattern in the middle, but since it isn't the actual garment I didn't go back and fix it. I decided that the beige on the bottom didn't contrast enough with the green and instead am using the beige at the top. I was trying that dark grey out for the ribbing, but no, that's no good at all. I think I'll just go with the dark purple. Hopefully I can convince myself that I need to finish at least one of the sweaters that are SO CLOSE TO BEING DONE before I cast on for this. We shall see. This is serious temptation.

If you haven't tried Crafsty yet I definitely recommend it. They run sales all the time, I haven't paid more than $15 for a class and the video lessons really are well done.

I am using Palette, and I do love having the sampler so I can swap colors in and out with abandon. I am going with purples and green as an accent color with grey for the ribbing. I don't generally wear vests, I have confusion about how to do it, but thinking about doing an entire sweater in fair isle seems more than a little overwhelming. I suppose if I get up to the armscye and am just loving it I could figure out how to make it into a sweater instead.

On a completely different note, I'm still tracking my yarn in/yarn out to make sure my attempt at destashing is still going in the right direction. My ratio for 2012 was 3:2, 30,000 yards out, 20,000 yards in. It could have been better, and would have if I hadn't gone to Stitches. If I didn't count Stitches the ratio would be 3:.7, only 7,000 yards in. Still, it's going in the right direction, my stash is down by 20,000 over the two years I've been doing this, so I am very pleased with that. I still have quite a bit of yarn for sale on Ravelry and I sell skeins here & there, so slowly but surely I am dwindling down my stash and that feels good.